“Or made of it,” I said. “And the ghostmen too.” The thought of dark energy inside my chest gave me phantom heart pains.
I could feel Wilder looking at me, and my muscles tensed. If I let him speak, I was afraid he would claim that the nanites had made him crazy and now he was cured, and I couldn’t bear to hear it because I’d want to believe him. But it couldn’t be true. Not completely. The nanites had affected all of us, but he’d still made choices. Besides, if the Wilder in the warehouse who admitted he killed Mi-sun and tried to kill me too had been nanite-impaired-false-Wilder, then so was the Wilder in the lair who kissed me. He was either all truth or all lies. I knew this logically, but if he spoke—
“Maisie,” he said, “I want to—”
I jumped out of the moving car and rolled on the asphalt. Dragon slowed, but I shouted to him that I would run back alone. We were only a few kilometers from HAL.
I left the road, bounding through the brush. The lights of HAL were barely visible, a low, faint star. After hours of trudging, the speed was liberating. I’d loved Wilder, and that confused pain came out of me in a howl as if I were an animal. I remembered Ruth running in the night, and me afraid to make eye contact. She’d seemed fearless. But I was resisting the urge to turn my back to HAL and run far away.
A high, stinging sound cut the night air. I froze to listen—a rabbit’s response. I forgot sometimes that I was the predator now.
Move, I thought.
I started to run again, but something tiny pricked my right calf. I didn’t slow to investigate. A few steps later, I couldn’t feel my leg at all. It just crumpled, and I fell. I looked to make sure my leg hadn’t actually disappeared. Sticking out of my calf was a long silver needle. I plucked it free and threw it at the ground.
In the couple of seconds I was down, another needle bit into my left leg. I yanked it out, switched my impact boots to “hop,” and slammed my left foot down. Midair, I felt my left leg go numb too. The ground was coming in fast. I twisted, landing on my back, and tumbled down an incline.
I could hear footsteps and a car.
I phoned Howell while crawling through the brush, my legs dragging. “I’m under attack out here. Not aliens. People. Shot me with something, my legs don’t work.” It wasn’t until I heard the panic in my own voice that I understood I was close to toast.
I sent my coordinates from my GPS. Footsteps closer, coming from right, left, behind. I fired havoc pellets into the darkness. I took off my impact boots, put them on my hands, and slammed them down. I hurtled forward, twisting and somersaulting in the air, belly flopping onto a bush. It was a faster means of travel than dragging my body through the dirt, so I kept up the exercise in self-humiliation.
The numbness in my legs was crawling up my pelvis.
Above, three helicopters with searchlights came from HAL. From the darkness, someone shot a missile. The helicopters moved, the rocket missed, exploding on the ground beyond us. Another rocket. The helicopters returned fire. A few bullets struck me in the crossfire, burning holes in my clothes.
Another missile from the dark. A HAL helicopter lurched and crashed. A rocket from a HAL helicopter struck a car on the ground. There were shouts and commands.
A third bite, this time on my right shoulder. Before I lost that arm to numbness, I slammed down my handheld boots as hard as I could and launched myself at the nearest helicopter, flipping through the air, shaking the boots off. I managed to seize the helicopter’s foot with my left hand. Someone pulled me in and we took off.
My head rolled back, the prick in my shoulder bleeding cold into my neck and down my right arm.
Dragon was holding me, his bald head shiny with sweat.
“They had needle darts, sharpened to the atom maybe. Pierced my skin.” I shouted to be heard over the helicopter noise.
“Are you dying?” he asked.
I shrugged with one shoulder. Every part of me that wasn’t numb was cold with fear.
“Don’t die,” he said. “If you have any choice in the matter, choose not to, okay?”
I nodded once and couldn’t lift my head back up again.
We landed inside HAL’s courtyard. Doctors met us at the helipad, Howell running alongside as they took me in.
“GT?” Howell asked.
“So it would seem,” said Dragon. “Hankering to punch him in the face right about now.”
In the lab, Wilder was waiting. I swore in my head. I was paralyzed, helpless. He could corner me and talk his manipulative crap, try to convince me of his reformed nature like he’d convinced Howell. For the moment he was standing out of the way. Waiting.
“Go wake her dad,” Dragon told somebody.
I grunted a no. If I wasn’t dying, I didn’t want to worry him or Luther.
Then I lost the ability to grunt.
Chapter 47
Complete paralysis. Even my eyelids froze. One of the doctors slid them shut for me, as if I were dead. My body felt corpse cold, though it didn’t shiver. Drool slid out of my mouth down my cheek, a cold wet line like the trail a snail leaves.
I didn’t sleep. My mind was microwave popcorn cooked on high. I lay and thought and could do nothing at all. I was waiting for one more change—either my mind would go dark too and that would be that, or something would move.
Hours later, something moved. A finger. A twitch in my toe. My eyelids.
Wilder was still in the lab, waiting like a vulture for me to die and offer up my tokens into his grubby hands. When I managed to sit, he gave up and left. One small victory.
“I’m taking credit for your not dying,” Dragon whispered to me, “since it was my idea.”
“Fair enough,” I whispered back, my throat trying to remember how to talk.
“GT failed to get you out there,” Howell said, sitting by my bed. “He’ll attack HAL next.”
I moved my right leg. My whole body prickled with returning life.
Howell turned to Dragon. “Code Lockdown?”
Dragon wrinkled his nose. “We should have come up with a better name, like Code Armageddon, or Code Imperial Fire …”
A few minutes later I eased myself out of the gurney, testing my weight on my legs. My bones felt rubbery, my muscles bags of sand, but I could stand up.
“If GT will attack here, why don’t we go somewhere else?” I asked.
“He’d track us wherever we went,” said Howell. “And HAL is my best refuge.”
“My mom—”
“Will be found and brought here. This is where I have the tools and supplies to support your mission. We’ll stand and fight.”
I went to find my dad only to see him coming to me under the triplets’ guard, Hairy pushing his wheelchair. Dad’s legs were bandaged and propped up, the gunshot wounds healing. Luther walked with his hand on Laelaps’s head, looking everywhere but at me.
“I don’t need so much fuss,” Dad said. “I’m feeling fine. Look.” He held up his right hand and made the Star Trek live-long-and-prosper sign.
“Nice,” I said. “High five.” I made like I was going to slap his hand. He pulled his hand down fast. “Easy, Dad. I was kidding. I won’t hurt you.”
He smiled as if he’d been kidding too.
Through the plate-glass atrium I could see car after car leaving HAL under guard of helicopters. Dragon got busy on a walkie-talkie, speaking in code. Hallway lights were shutting off.
“¿Qué pasa?” Dad asked.
“GT decided we didn’t have enough on our hands with the whole alien thing, so he attacked me outside the compound.”
“I don’t much care for GT,” said Dad.
Dragon intoned over the PA system that all remaining complex residents should report to Howell’s office immediately. The triplets hurried off with Dad, leaving me and Luther walking together.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” Luther said.
He put his hands in his pockets. “So, it was weird the other day when we bumped into each other a
nd our faces kind of accidentally smooshed together.”
I smiled, but kept my head turned so he didn’t see. “Yeah, that was weird.”
Luther stopped, so I stopped too. His expression was intense.
“Just promise me it won’t be him.”
“What?”
“Wilder. Promise me you won’t choose him.”
If I hadn’t had the brute token, I would have slugged him.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Or I’m discerning and concerned.”
“You think I’m vacuous?”
“I think you’re a girl, and as far as I can tell, girls do vacuous things for guys like him.”
I walked faster, my recently numb legs shaking beneath me. “I thought you knew me better.”
“I used to know you,” he said, keeping up behind me. “Frak, Maisie, I don’t know anything anymore.”
Those were words I never thought I’d hear Luther say. Except for the “frak” part. I stopped.
“But we’re still best friends, right?” I said.
“Affirmative.”
“Then everything’s okay.”
He smiled as if I’d made perfect sense. I hoped my eyes didn’t betray my fear. My mom was lost somewhere. I had all five tokens and was weaker for it. I’d been failing and failing, and it was getting harder to muster up any hope at all.
A mechanical grating noise startled us. A metal wall was unrolling from the ceiling, locking off the rest of the building.
Howell’s office was already filled—Dad, Wilder, plus Dragon and a crowd of security guys including Hairy, Scary, and Larry. Just ten of the PhD/MD whitecoats remained after the mass exodus.
“GT will attack us,” Howell said without preamble. “It never rains but it’s pouring with old men snoring. I’ve sent away everyone who has children at home, as well as anyone I can’t trust with my life.”
I glanced at Wilder to see if he showed any shame. He was leaning against the wall, his gaze on the ceiling.
“We’ve closed down everything but the core of this building,” said Dragon. “The lab, a few dormitories, security center, staff kitchen, storage, bunkers, and this office. The gates in the outer walls are locked. The electric fence is live. We are off grid and well supplied. Until GT and aliens are no longer a threat, this is your home.”
Luther was pale. Dad cleared his throat before speaking, but his voice still cracked.
“But … my wife,” he said.
Dragon looked at his hands. “We’ve had no word—”
“My team in Florida is still looking,” said Howell, “and when they find her, they will bring her here. Security, your job is to keep us all alive. Everyone else, your job is to do whatever Maisie Brown needs you to do. Maisie Brown, your job is to save the world.”
Howell stood, catching us all in her fierce gaze. She picked up three red balls off her desk and juggled them with just her right hand, spiraling them in high ellipses. She caught two in her hand and the third in her mouth. Her people sprang to their feet, applauding.
“Very nice, Bonnie,” Dragon said. “Team Basilisk, I want your eyes on the monitors. Team Griffin to the turrets. Team Yeti, take a rest. You’ll be on duty tonight.”
“Who named the teams, Dragon?” I asked.
He lowered his sunglasses to look at me as he left. “Team Danger, you’re general of the civilians.” He shut the door.
“I’m general?”
“You’re the thinker now,” said Howell.
All eyes were on me. Even Luther’s. He was fussing with the zipper on his sweatshirt, its zing the only sound in the room. I cleared my throat.
“So, I think I know some things.” I was aware of Wilder still leaning against the wall, but I didn’t look at him. Luther’s zip-zip-zip made me want to pace. “The ghostmen are old. Not tortoiseold. Planet-old. They don’t die.”
Someone whimpered. I agreed that wasn’t good news.
“This is just a hypothesis,” I told my dad as an apology.
“I’d say hypotheses are in order,” he said.
“Okay. So the ghostmen are adversely affected by gravity and need robot suits in order to move outside their ship. When the robot suit arm attaches to a human, the ghost can leave the suit, shooting through the arm and into the person. An intangible parasite, it takes over all the human body’s functions. After people are possessed by the aliens, it looks like they mostly spend their time eating and seeking out adrenaline rushes.”
“Seriously?” said Luther.
“They’re here to enjoy physical bodies,” said Wilder.
“That’s what I’ve observed,” I said. “Here’s my best guess about the rest. The ghostmen evolved from something like dark energy. Maybe they came across technology from another species and adapted what they found for their own uses.” This was all feeling right, the thinker token seeming content inside me, so I went on. “They didn’t know what pleasure was until they inhabited another species’ bodies. Once they experienced a tangible existence, it became their obsession, and now they cross the galaxy seeking new hosts so they can experience sensations again.
“At some point their two ships arrived at what I’ll call Planet A and started taking over bodies. Planet A inhabitants probably discovered them, fought them, and failed, but managed to send info about the enemy to Planet B, another planet they were in contact with, probably their sister colony in another solar system. After the ghosts used up the last of Planet A’s dwellers, their ships traveled to Planet B.
“By the time the ships arrived, Planet B had made the tokens that gave five individuals the necessary skills to destroy the ships. They succeeded with one, but the other ship got away, heading, most likely, for the next nearest planet with sentient life: Earth. The token-makers packaged up the tokens and sent them to us, presumably to spare us the fate of Planet A and help us destroy the second ship.
“The ghostmen will want to stay here as long as possible. I think they try to be careful to avoid notice, inserting themselves into people who live in isolated places.”
I glanced at Wilder. He nodded once as if he’d thought the same thing, then looked back at the ceiling.
“When possessed humans die, the ghosts are booted out,” I said. “I think if the ship isn’t nearby to suck them back in, the ghostmen would keep floating right out of Earth’s atmosphere into space’s vacuum, where they’d be helpless. That’s where we want them.”
I paused. Everyone waited.
“And so, in conclusion, I need to destroy their ship.”
“And … how?” asked Luther.
“I was able to fight off the mini-troopers pretty easily,” I said. “But as soon as they realized I was the fireteam, the infected humans must have alerted the big ship to my location, and it master-blasted me. I don’t … I don’t know if a direct blast could kill me, but maybe. I think the fireteam’s purpose is to destroy the ship. That has to be where they store their robot suits, and without them, they can’t enter any new bodies. And without the ship to recapture them, disembodied ghostmen will enter space and have no way to return to take any more bodies.”
“Okay, so let’s get some heavy firepower and obliterate the sucker out of the sky,” Luther said.
“Well, it’s superfast and invisible,” I said. “The only way to locate it is to watch where the disembodied ghostmen go, and only I can see them. So here’s the plan: we need to gather together a bunch of possessed people and somehow kick the little pink aliens out of them. The ship will come to rescue them, and I’ll follow the ghosts to the ship, break into it, and destroy it from the inside.”
Chapter 48
It felt great to have a plan at last. I looked at Luther, expecting his approval of my superhero scheme. But he was just staring at me. Everyone else looked away—at the floor, at their hands. I felt the doubt in the silence like a vise.
“Do you know how smart the token-makers were?” I said. “They could send an asteroid millions of kilometers at
the perfect trajectory to safely land in Earth’s orbit, and even they couldn’t defeat two ships. Apparently no military or weapon was sufficient. The fire-team was the best option.”
More silence.
I looked at Luther. “I know it’s risky, but what else can I do?”
“Not die?” he said.
“Luthe—”
“I know you’re the Astounding Fireteam, but this plan … it’s too much for one person, and outrageously dangerous. You might as well jump into a volcano.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But I don’t know what else to do.”
“Let’s mull this over dinner, shall we?” Howell said brightly.
Everyone muttered agreement and began to shuffle from the room. Luther glanced back at me before leaving. I just stood there, already feeling half-dead.
Only the thinker could use the tokens of the slain team members. Clearly the token-makers had considered casualties likely. If at least one out of five was expected to die, what was the probability that one out of one would survive?
I wasn’t as strong as Ruthless. I couldn’t produce as much armor as Jack Havoc or shoot as often as Code Blue. My techno token was weaker than at first, and I clearly couldn’t plot as well as the Wild Card. I longed to counsel with Wilder. I glanced at him as he left and reminded myself how he’d laughed at me when he’d shot off Fido.
I turned to Howell.
“I just want to remind you that GT’s son is still walking around free.”
“I sent away everyone I couldn’t trust with my life,” she said.
“Yeah, and you’re crazy.”
Howell giggled. Straight up giggled. “But Miss Brown, wouldn’t I have to be?”
I shouted after her as she walked away, “What does that even mean?”
I ate dinner in the lab with my dad and Luther. Dad was chatty with the whitecoats, going over the robot suit, hypothesizing about whether the interior of the ship would be solid as well. He seemed so upbeat, but I detected cracks in his gusto. Sometimes he looked at me like Luther did—as if seeing me already dead.
For the first time since getting Ruth’s token, I didn’t want to eat.